Jeffrey Dean Morgan reacts to Negan and Lucille Dead City reunion

Dalton Ross
·4 min read
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Jeffrey Dean Morgan reacts to Negan and Lucille Dead City reunion
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Warning: This article contains spoilers about The Walking Dead: Dead City season 1, episode 4, "Everybody Wins a Prize."

There was a lot of activity at the end of Sunday's "Everybody Wins a Prize" episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) saved Armstrong (Gaius Charles), only for Armstrong to then turn around and threaten Negan with execution, only for Negan to then turn around and call Armstrong a four-letter word that rhymes with a first name commonly found before Grimes. Meanwhile, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and company were heading into the sewers of Manhattan to face God knows what.

But it was the scene that started off the episode that has everybody talking. The episode surprisingly began with a flashback to the Sanctuary. That meant we saw Negan in full Negan 1.0 mode — complete with his trademark leather jacket and barbed wire-covered baseball bat.

The Walking Dead: Dead City
The Walking Dead: Dead City

Peter Kramer/AMC Jeffrey Dean Morgan on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

If the flashback scene enthused fans, it excited the actor even more. "I was so happy," Morgan tells EW. "It was just awesome to have on the leather jacket and to have Lucille in my hand. I can't tell you how much I miss her. There's something about holding that bat in a scene that makes me feel whole."

Morgan talks about Negan's bat the way an actor usually refers to a human scene partner. He explains that the inanimate object helped inform his performance when he first joined The Walking Dead franchise in the season 6 finale. "There is a relationship that I will forever have with that piece of wood wrapped in barbed wire — that I will have as Jeff. It's incredibly special because for whatever reason, on that first day when Negan comes out of the trailer and the first couple days that we shot, I really bonded in an odd way to this object. And it indicated so much of what I did as an actor. It indicated the lean back. It indicated so much of the physicality of who Negan was by just holding it. Everything kind of stemmed from that bat."

The Walking Dead: Dead City
The Walking Dead: Dead City

Peter Kramer/AMC Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Steven Ogg on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

But the leather jacket and baseball bat named after a dead wife weren't the only surprises in the flashback. Fans were also treated to the return of Negan's trusted (for a time, at least) lieutenant Simon — played, as always, with panache by Steven Ogg. In the scene, Simon informs Negan that the Croat (Željko Ivanek) has disobeyed a direct order by torturing a child for information after being expressly told not to. Simon tells Negan, and then the two go and visit the Croat, where the torturer claims the girl has "confessed." "Kids is a line we do not cross," barks Simon to the man he calls a "Slavic psychopathic nutjob."

For Morgan, getting some of the Saviors gang back together was a welcome reunion. "I was so happy to get a chance to bring Steven back. What an amazing choice — out of all the people in this universe we could have had come back, to have Ogg come back. I'd take him back any f---ing time. It was so good to see him. And Steven is one of the funniest people you will ever meet. That guy's a trip, man. He is a laugh, he is a poet, and he's an individual that is unlike anyone I've ever met. I just adore him, so I feel really lucky to have had him come back. He can have his own f---ing series just doing anything and I would watch it."

The Walking Dead: Dead City
The Walking Dead: Dead City

Peter Kramer/AMC Steven Ogg and Zeljko Ivanek on 'The Walking Dead: Dead City'

In fact, watching is pretty much all Morgan did in those flashback scenes. "I don't talk in those scenes with Ogg," he notes. "It's Ogg doing all of the talking." That meant Morgan had a front-row seat to all the fireworks — fireworks that were ignited before cameras even began rolling.

"We did a rehearsal of that scene just to get our places where the camera needs to see us," explains Morgan. "And it was the first day I'd worked with Željko in the whole series as well. During the rehearsal, Steven went full Ogg, and I remember looking at Željko, because he realized pretty quickly, 'Oh s---.' And so in the rehearsal, these two guys are going at it 120 percent. And I was sitting there just watching this going, 'Oh, f--- me. I don't know what they're going to do when the cameras are actually rolling because they're not rolling right now and they're going to kill each other!' It was spectacular. I'm glad I got to be a spectator on that one and just sort of feel it all." And fans no doubt had feelings seeing Negan back in the leather with Lucille by his side.

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